Time Fuse

by Penny Jordan

  Dear Reader,

  I can hardly believe that it is almost twenty years since I wrote my first Harlequin book. The thrill of having that book accepted and then seeing it on the bookshelves—being picked up and chosen by readers—is one I shall never forget.

  Twenty years seems a long time. So much has happened during those years; so much has changed and yet so much remains the same. The changes that we have all seen within society are, I believe, reflected in the books we, as Harlequin authors, write. They mirror the changes that take place around us in our own and our readers’ lives. Our heroines have changed, matured, grown up, as indeed I have done myself. I cannot tell you how much pleasure it gives me to be able to write of mature—as well as young—women finding love. And, of course, love is something that has not changed. Love is still love and always will be, because love is, after all, an intrinsic, vital component of human happiness.

  As I read through these books that are being reissued in this Collector’s Edition, they bring back for me many happy memories of the times when I wrote them, and I hope that my readers, too, will enjoy the same nostalgia and pleasure.

  I wish you all very many hours of happy reading and lives blessed with love.

  Back by Popular Demand

  Penny Jordan is one of the world’s best loved as well as bestselling authors, and she was first published by Harlequin in 1981. The novel that launched her career was Falcon’s Prey, and since then she has gone on to write more than one hundred books. In this special collection, Harlequin is proud to bring back a selection of these highly sought after novels. With beautiful cover art created by artist Erica Just, this is a Collector’s Edition to cherish.

  Penny Jordan

  COLLECTOR’S EDITION

  Time Fuse

  ERICA JUST

  cover illustrator for the

  Penny Jordan Collector’s Edition

  Erica Just is an artist and illustrator working in various media, including watercolor, pen and ink, and textiles. Her studio is in Nottingham, England.

  Her work is inspired by the natural forms, architecture and vibrant colors that she has experienced on her travels, most especially in Africa and India.

  Erica has exhibited her work extensively in Great Britain and Europe and has works in private and public collections. As an illustrator she works for a number of companies and also lectures on textile design throughout the country.

  Artwork copyright © Erica Just 1997

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  SELINA glanced tensely at her watch, forcing herself to appear calm and relaxed as she linked her hands together in her lap and sat well back in her chair. It was irrational that now, when she had already expended so much mental anguish on what lay ahead, she should be suffering these second thoughts. The pros and cons had already been weighed and having been weighed had been again, and in the end, there could have been no other decision. Not to accept the opportunity fate had handed her would be tantamount to running away, and she had learned long ago during the traumatic days of her childhood that that was simply to court further pain and humiliation. No, when she had first heard about this vacancy from her present employer she had had to resist a strong compulsion to tell him that she had no desire to apply for it, but would he have understood? Might he not have started to ask questions she could not answer, and anyway, hadn’t there been a stronger compulsion; a need she had thought conquered but which flourished inside her still…a desire to see and know for herself?

  She trembled slightly, a tall girl with sleek blonde hair; she took after her mother in looks and her father in build. The hint of sensuality in the arrangement of her features that she had inherited from her mother often caused the freezing disdain with which she des-patched her would-be lovers to come as something of a shock. They couldn’t know that she used that disdain to cloak fear and pain. ‘Baked Alaska’ one wit had called her when she was up at Oxford; all melting sweetness on the outside and cold as ice on the inside.

  Better by far to be considered cold than easy game. Her grey eyes hardened slightly, her muscles clenching. She must not think of the past now. But wasn’t now exactly the time she should be thinking of it? Easy game; she could still vividly remember one of her mother’s lovers describing her thus, and she herself had lived too long with the soul-searing agonies of such a label—albeit at second-hand—to be in any doubts about that.

  They had not got on well, she and her mother. She was her father’s child, she had once told her and ironically she had known herself unloved because of that. Doubly ironic really when one…

  ‘Miss Thorn?’ The pleasant voice of the secretary interrupted her thoughts. ‘Sir Gerald is ready for you now. Won’t you please come in?’

  His office was everything one would expect from an eminent QC, the very air redolent almost with the smell of respectability and wealth. The palms of her hands were sweating slightly, and she wished more than anything else, at this particular moment in time that she could simply turn tail and run. Fool, fool, she derided herself… What was she doing here?

  She was here because she wanted a job as Sir Gerald’s PA she reminded herself as she faced her prospective employer. Tall, with a shock of white hair, the photographs she had seen of him had not done him justice. There were lines on his face that had not been put there merely by time, a warmth in his smile she had not anticipated and which left her unbalanced.

  ‘Miss Thorn.’ He reached across his desk to shake her hand and Selina had to quell a ridiculous urge to touch him. As though he sensed her hesitancy he looked at her. Forcing a smile she extended her hand. His grip was firm without dominating.

  ‘Please sit down.’

  Breathe deeply, keep calm, she admonished herself doing as he bid. It had been hard-won the elegance and grace with which she now moved. She had been a tall gangly girl, ill at ease with her own body, who had had to force herself to accept that the grooming of the mind alone was not sufficient.

  Oxford had done much to change her, but some things could never be lost. She still possessed a residue of antipathy towards the male sex which could sometimes reassert itself, often at life’s most awkward moments, and when it did she told herself that it was a combination of fear and pain. At university she had once been asked by a rejected lover what her hang-up was; why she insisted on remaining a virgin. She could have told him; by then she had learned enough about herself and others to analyse and study herself objectively with cool distance, but knowing herself was easier than implementing a change.

  Once long ago she had dreamed of possessing an office like this for herself, of earning praise and recognition for her legal skills, but like all other daydreams it had been destroyed by reality. Foster children did not come from backgrounds wealthy enough to provide the financial backing for a legal training. It had been a hard blow to accept, but she had accepted it, and now she was here applying for a post that at least would bring her into contact with that side of the law she found most stimulating.

  Her prospective employer was talking; his initial questions were simple to answer, designed to put her at her ease she suspected, and they also gave her the opportunity to study him. She did so almost dispassionately, forcing herself not to give in to the tide of emotion threatening to surge through her. What had she expected? Instant recognition? Her lips compressed. Instant rejection would have been more likely. She should not have come here; she should have obeyed her first instincts and refused even to apply for the position. Wo
rking here could only cause her the utmost anguish. How many years had she spent training and controlling the more emotional side of her nature? And here she was on the point of throwing all that effort away, and for what? She was here, she reminded herself firmly, and it was too late to go back. To drag her thoughts away from the pain she concentrated on the first thing in her line of vision. It was a large family photograph depicting Sir Gerald, his wife, and a collection of other adults and children.

  He saw her looking at it and picked it up smiling. ‘My wife gave me that as a Ruby Wedding gift.’

  She thought she was going to be sick but somehow she had managed a smile, inwardly berating herself for ever laying herself open to this pain.

  ‘No doubt if you eventually come to work for me you will meet my family. I normally work from home during the summer recess. I have a place in Dorset.’

  She nodded her head, fighting to stay calm. She knew all about Sir Gerald’s Dorsetshire home and his family.

  ‘So you heard of the post through my old friend Judge Seaton?’ he was saying. ‘Well, you certainly come very highly qualified… Never thought of trying for the bar yourself?’

  It was a natural enough question, but it was still one that brought pain, thin colour touching delicate cheekbones as she said quietly, ‘I should have loved nothing more, but there was a question of finance.’

  ‘Of course…quite…’ There was a moment’s pause and then Sir Gerald was smiling again. ‘We have a very busy set of chambers here, with the bulk of the work being handled by my nephew Piers Gresham—a QC like myself—one of the youngest in the country.’ He said it with pride and she had an irrational surge of dislike against his unknown nephew. He went on to describe the type of work she would be involved in and asked several more questions all of which Selina was able to answer. He had not exaggerated when he said she was highly qualified—almost excessively so for the post she was applying for, but even so she knew she ought to be flattered when he said frankly, ‘Well my dear, I think I’d be a fool not to snap you up straightaway, if you are in agreement?’

  For a moment caution warred with emotion. She ought to refuse; it was the only sane thing to do. She had already experienced first hand the anguish that would be a part of her everyday life if she stayed but the old compulsion was too strong to resist and almost as though it was someone else speaking for her, she heard herself accepting.

  ‘Excellent.’ His smile was genuinely warm. Who looking at him could doubt that he was exactly what he seemed; a strong, compassionate man dedicated to the cause of justice?

  ‘Marvellous. Now if you could just check through a few personal details? Your parents are dead?’

  Her nails bit deeply into her palms but she barely felt the pain.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed briefly, ‘a car accident when I was eleven.’

  ‘And after that you were brought up by foster parents?’

  ‘I was too old for adoption.’ How coolly she said it, her grey eyes calm and unshadowed. ‘And you have no other family?’

  How she hated the compassion thickening his voice. She wanted to strike out at him physically but she curbed the emotion.

  ‘None at all.’ She wouldn’t allow herself to think of the grandparents who might have done so much to ease the misery of her life, but who had repudiated their only daughter, too ashamed and bitter to give her and her illegitimate child any support. They were simply another link in the long chain of betrayals that began with the man who had fathered her and who had then callously and publicly spurned her mother in a blaze of publicity that had burned scars into Selina’s soul that could never be erased. This man, she thought emotionlessly, watching him; this man who sat opposite her with a photograph of his family placed cosily on his desk; this man who represented the law of the land in its highest state; this man who had promised her foolish, greedy mother everything and who had given her nothing bar a child she did not want. No, that last was not strictly true. Her mother had wanted her initially when she had hoped to use her as her weapon in the war she was waging against her lover’s wife; but it had all backfired on her and in order to get her revenge on her lover she had proclaimed their affair to the press.

  Selina couldn’t remember when she first realised how different she was from other children; perhaps it was when she started nursery school and men were always waiting to take her photograph, asking her to smile, but she had been about seven before the nightmare really began, when she began to learn what all the curiosity and muted whispers were about. Sometimes it seemed as though there wasn’t a single person in the world who didn’t know who she was. Her mother had never made any secret of it, she remembered bitterly. In those years her mother was still able to excite press interest. After all it had been the scandal of the year; the successful barrister, who had promised to leave his wife and family for his mistress and who had then reneged on the bargain, leaving said mistress pregnant.

  It had been said in the press at the time that her pregnancy had been a deliberate ploy to break up his marriage; her mother would have been capable of that, Selina reflected, but it still took two. Even now she still bore the scars of those early years when it seemed that everyone knew her as Gerald Harvey’s bastard. The illegitimacy in itself was no big deal; there were many other single-parent children at school with her. No, what had caused the bitterness to take seed and root inside her had been the inescapable knowledge that she had been rejected; that her father had chosen his other children over and above her; that even her conception had been no more than another move in a power game. If she hated her father then she despised her mother; loathed the way in those early years she herself had been paraded about as though she were some sort of freak. She could still vividly remember the headlines she had stolen into the local library to read; the sick sense of betrayal that reading them had brought her.

  Financially her mother had done extremely well out of her relationship. There had been a generous lump sum payment but, as she had complained to Selina on more than one occasion, it hadn’t been the same as being Gerald’s wife; of enjoying the security and prestige such a role would have brought.

  Her father hadn’t been her mother’s only lover; as an ambitious social climber, who had seen an opportunity and taken it, there had been men before him and men after. The man she had died with in the wreck of his car had just been the latest in a long list. Selina had grown up in the knowledge that sex between men and women was a bargaining counter; a weapon that both sides wielded without thought or guilt.

  She had been a pawn, used ruthlessly by her mother in her campaign to reinforce her claim on her father. He had promised her mother marriage—that much had been made clear in the press, and then had rescinded that promise. She had been her mother’s last-ditch attempt to sway that decision.

  All her life until her mother’s death she had been an object of curiosity and pity. Other children knew her story and repeated it to her with various embellishments; her progress at school had been compared with that of her father’s legitimate children at the same age. Her mother’s death and the consequent muddle when the overworked social worker had mistakenly given her surname as that of her mother’s current lover had brought a welcome release from all the publicity.

  By that time she had craved anonymity with such intensity that her foster parents had a long struggle to even converse with her in the initial stages. They had been a kind couple and with them she had found a sort of peace, but all the time she had been tense and wary, waiting for the knowing smile, the mocking words.

  They had never come and she had been free to pursue her own life as her own person. Deep inside her had grown an intense need to know this man who had fathered her; a feeling that until she did so the past would continue to trap her. She had had her life all mapped out. She intended to enter the legal arena—to enter it and conquer it, she admitted. None of her father’s legitimate children had followed him into the law and not even to herself was she really prepared to admit tha
t her fierce thirst for success owed its being to a deep-rooted need to show her father and the rest of the world what she could do.

  The information that her father was looking for a new PA had been a gift from fate she could not refuse, giving her as it did the opportunity she had craved for since childhood; that of observing first-hand the man who had given her life. Did he ever think of her, she wondered bitterly; when he looked at the photograph of his wife and family, did his mind stray to her? Or did he simply consider that the money he had paid her mother had absolved him from all responsibility?

  She knew quite well that it was a common fantasy of illegitimate children to crave their absent father’s approval and attention just as she had done, but now, confronted for the first time with the reality of that father she was surprised at how little emotion she felt. No, she amended mentally, it wasn’t that she didn’t feel, it was simply that as yet she was too frozen and tense to be able to analyse her feelings. He was the same as she had imagined and yet different…a human being with whom she had one of the closest blood ties that existed and yet who did not even know who she was. For one moment she was afraid she might actually break down and cry. So much for the man-friend who had once derided her as an emotional cripple. At the time she had flinched from the words, confirming as they had seemed to do the fear that had haunted her childhood; that her father had rejected her through some fault of her own; some defect in her. Now she knew enough to realise that this was a common feeling in children, but even so some of the guilt and pain still remained.

  The job was hers; and from now on she would have the time and the opportunity to study him at close quarters. And when she had done so? She frowned slightly. She had not thought that far ahead. What was she expecting, she derided herself; that somehow coming to know her father would be the answer to all the deficiencies she saw in herself? Would knowing him enable her to cast aside her dread of emotional commitment in order that she could take a lover, for instance? One step at a time she told herself. One step at a time.